Author(s): Erik Olssen (Professor of History, University of Otago, New Zealand) and Maureen Hickey

NZ non-fiction

Class and Occupation is the first systematic attempt to identify New Zealand's actual occupational structure from 1893 to 1938, using the information gathered by the New Zealand census. The six essays are based on the work of Caversham Project at the University of Otago and cosider how best to code occupations for the whole country and for the regions and localities within it. New light is cast on the social change in New Zealand and significantly, women's participation in the paid non-agricultural workforce. Systematic comparision of local and national occupational structures also makes it possible to analyse the way in which scale shaped the occupational order and stratification system, as well as the meaning of such concepts as 'class','industrial' and 'urban'. First published December 2005.